


pretty tigers, fairweather friends

by scarecrowes



Category: Boardwalk Empire
Genre: Drug Use, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-15
Updated: 2012-09-15
Packaged: 2017-11-14 06:44:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/512430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarecrowes/pseuds/scarecrowes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>A historical nickname for AR among his younger cohorts was "PhD", or "Papa has dough".</p>
    </blockquote>





	pretty tigers, fairweather friends

**Author's Note:**

> A historical nickname for AR among his younger cohorts was "PhD", or "Papa has dough".

They're trying to pull him back. Rothstein knows that.   
  
What he doesn't know is why they keep needling for his attention. It isn't constant in the least, but they do - every few weeks-  
  
(and they're longer weeks each time, longer and longer)   
  
\- Charlie will show up at a poker game, or a pool hall. He'll show up even though he wasn't  _invited_ , because his name means something now, even if Rothstein still refuses to use it. He's  _Charlie_ , and he'll always be Charlie, at least until he isn't.   
  
But he'll show up and drink whiskey that makes Rothstein's tongue curl, and never offer money because no one asks, anymore.   
  
And it's been years since he was approached by a wide-eyed kid at a party he'd rather not have gone to. But he still, somehow, ends up at Lindy's at three in the morning, and Meyer sits across from him like he doesn't belong somewhere else.   
  
"You holding up okay, Doc?"   
  
Frank was the one who'd told him about it, around whenever it had been that he and Benny stopped floating on the outskirts of his attention, whenever it became four cards in his palm instead of two. The boys were never sheepish about it, though - the nickname slid into conversation only these times, with Meyer quiet across the table and the coffee between them getting cold.   
  
Though they didn't call him  _Papa_  to his face.   
  
Meyer's still wide-eyed, suspicious ( _concerned_  comes the thought, and it's dismissed out of hand), but not a child. Not anymore. It's an almost nauseating idea, that this boy is older now than Charlie was when they'd first met.   
  
"I’m swell," is all Rothstein says, offering a smile that makes his jaw crack.  _I want to go home_ , he wants to ask, or demand, and never will. His arms ache, burn, and itch, and Carolyn's been in Europe, away, somewhere, for far, far too long.   
  
(He dreams sometimes, terrified, that she doesn't come back at all.)   
  
Maybe it's that reason he strays downtown, one night - if he even needs a reason for anything, anymore, with who he is and what his name means. He ends up with them anyway, despite himself, because they will not leave him  _be_. Meyer talks numbers that rattle through his head and Charlie laughs, sniping and too warm, avoiding telling them he's bored out of his mind - at least at first.   
  
Rothstein wakes up for once not sick and shaking, with both of them at his sides like bookends. They're missing shoes, cufflinks, fob and wristwatch neatly abandoned on the table; his mouth still tastes like rye and ginger, but he's only been taken out of his vest and for that he's almost grateful.  
  
He'll leave them that way, he thinks, slip out while they're asleep and be done with it - at least until his wrist is caught, one or both of them bleary-eyed and grinning, pulling him back down.   
  
 _Don't go yet, Pop._  
  
They're not his boys, not anymore - but at least they've learned to lie convincingly.


End file.
